1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to music teaching systems and methods and, more particularly, to music teaching systems and methods for stringed instruments.
2. Description of the Related Art
Beginning students of stringed musical instruments such as the violin, viola, cello and string bass face the challenge of not only mastering instrumental technique, but also of learning how to play printed music. Even if a student already knows how to read music, they also must learn which finger to use on which string, and in which hand position along the fingerboard they should place their fingers in order to produce the desired notes.
Numerous efforts have been made to assist stringed instrument players with proper finger placement on the strings. Since stringed instruments such as the violin have no frets to help the user know where to place their fingers, many methods suggest that fingerboard markings be used. Francesco Geminiani's 1751 violin method book, “The Art of Playing on the Violin,” contains a visual depiction of the violin fingerboard with all of the tones and semitones marked, and includes a recommendation that the learner similarly mark their violin fingerboard. He also illustrates and describes the seven hand positions used in playing the violin, and includes fingering numbers placed over some musical notes to indicate when the user should shift from one hand position to another.
In a 1920 article entitled “Class Violin Teaching,” Albert G. Mitchell describes how he developed and printed a violin fingerboard chart to paste on the fingerboard of student violins to assist his students with finger placement and intonation. Mitchell's method book, the 1918 edition of “The Public School Class Method for the Violin,” shows an illustration and order form for a colored adhesive fingerboard chart for violin fingerboards. Mitchell's 1918 method book also contains black fingering numbers selectively placed above the printed music to assist the user in knowing which finger to use when playing music. Other fingerboard guides include Hullah Brown's colored spots which he adhered to the fingerboard of an instrument he called the violinda, a practice violin he designed for young children in England in the 1930s.
Many patents have been issued for devices that have been developed to assist the user with proper finger placement on the fingerboard. Representative patents showing aids of this type are U.S. Pat. No. 2002/0011142, to Mead, “Method and apparatus for teaching playing of stringed instrument,” a chromatic fingerboard map that shows the finger location of notes; U.S. Pat. No. 6,218,603, to Coonce, “Note locator for stringed instruments,” an adhesive fingerboard device with colored indicators to assist the user in correct finger placement on the strings; U.S. Pat. No. 5,920,023, to Ravagni, another adhesive fingerboard system that aids students in finger positioning, and electronic fingerboard sensor systems such as U.S. Pat. No. 6,162,981, to Newcomer, “Finger placement sensor for stringed instruments.” All of these fingerboard aids attempt to assist the user in fingering placement, and all are variations of the same concept: where to place the fingers, not how to increase the user's ability to finger and read regular sheet music.
Some fingerboard placement devices attempt to assist the user with fingering and note reading skills. U.S. Pat. No. 3,978,756, to Feldman, entitled “Guitar instruction system,” places colored indicia comprising the note names on the fingerboard, and uses colored noteheads on sheet music that is attached to the guitar fingerboard with a music sheet holder. The sheet music is written backwards, and requires the user to read it using a mirror. Such a system depends upon external devices that are bulky and cumbersome, and distracts the user from the concentration needed to read regular sheet music and properly play their instrument.
Feldman's use of color to assist with note reading skills is not new. Throughout the ages, color has been used to help students learn musical notation. During the Medieval Era, before the four-line staff was standardized, different colored ink was frequently used to draw different lines, such as red for f and yellow or green for c′. In a 1991 article entitled “Effect of Color-Coded Notation on Music Achievement of Elementary Instrumental Students,” George Rogers describes numerous research studies which found that the use of color in non-music instructional materials resulted in increased student performance. However, when Rogers conducted a study using color-coded notation with music students, his experiment did not result in higher student achievement. This is likely due to the manner in which he designed his study. Rogers assigned a different color to each of the 12 chromatic tones, an approach that utilized too many colors to effectively assist the music students in playing and learning music more rapidly than those students using standard notation.
A simplified form of colored notation can be found in the 1972 publication, “Rainbow Tones, Book 2” for Violin. This approach uses four colors that correspond to the four strings of the violin. Instead of musical staff lines, thick blocks of colors are used with the letter name of each note printed in black within the colored blocks to indicate what string the user should use to play the notes. This approach also recommends that the user place colored adhesive sticker dots on their fingerboard to assist in correct finger placement. The use of colored blocks, letters and other deviations of standard notation require the user to learn yet another confusing system of how to play music.
Another music instruction system using colored notation is described in two articles entitled “A Rainbow of Learning,” and “Upper Midwest: A Colourful Conference in Mankato.” This system, the Colourstrings method, appears to be designed for young children, and the music books use graphics such as a small bird for the E string, a mommy for the A string, the D string as a daddy, and the G string as a teddy bear. Four specified colors are used which correspond to the instruments' four strings, and a progression of colored staves, noteheads and fingering is used with the first violin book using notes on a single, colored stave, in the second book, colored noteheads appear on a five line stave, and by the end of the second book, colored fingering is used with regular notation. A description of the cello book indicates that shifts are illustrated by such notation as: an orange line with a black note indicates the note is in the first position on the D string; an orange note on a black line indicates a note that is in fourth position on the same string, and this same note on a blue line would be played in first position on the A string. Although this method may be a useful and entertaining way to teach young pupils how to read music, such an overwhelming system of alternating colored lines, colored noteheads and black noteheads to indicate what fingers to use, on particular strings, in specific hand positions, could be confusing for students who already know how to read music and simply want fingering assistance in order to quickly play sheet music. Again, too many teaching tools can overload the learner and cause them to become dependent on an artificial system of musical symbols and designs rather than help the user to learn how to read and finger actual musical notation.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,288,315 to Bennett issued Sep. 11, 2001, entitled “Method and apparatus for musical training,” describes a template designed to identify desired combinations of musical notes. He devised a simplified form of colored notation to assist the user in playing stringed and keyboard instruments. His method not only assigns a different color to each diatonic note of the scale, but also employs a confusing assignment of combinations of colors to indicate sharps and flats. His apparatus includes different templates for chords, scales and other different sets of notes, and his effort to simplify notation for the user, instead, adds complex confusion.
Additional patents devised to teach musical notation include U.S. Pat. No. 5,540,132 to Hale issued May 2, 2000, entitled “Method and apparatus for teaching musical notation to young children.” This method and apparatus is designed for young children. Each note of the scale is associated with a distinctly identifiable color, which is in turn associated with an object which naturally occurs in this color. Each object is associated with a cartoon character which prominently incorporates an image of the object. Each character is endowed with a distinctly identifiable personality characteristic to enable the child to utilize the cartoon character in an educational activity. Although possibly useful for young children, such a system requires the user to learn new systems and symbols, and would not be practical for helping stringed players quickly finger and play written music.